Photo by Ted Peck.

This winter will be another banner year for ice-fishermen. Where there’s safe ice, mixed bags of panfish, walleyes, northern pike and even an occasional bass or channel cat are all up for grabs.

Here’s where you’ll want to set your tip-ups this year to get in on the action.

Busse Lake
Busse Lake is a favorite of locals in Chicago, said fisheries biologist Frank Jakubicek of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. There are plenty of chunky bluegills and good numbers of bonus bass to be taken.

“There is an 8-inch minimum-length restriction on the bluegills, so there are a lot of them just under that length,” Jakubicek said. “The best bluegill fishing is on the southeastern section of the lake.”

You’ll have to do some walking to reach the far sections of Busse Lake, which is actually divided into three separate bodies of water. The Main Pool covers 419 acres; the North Pool covers 25 acres, and the South Pool covers 146 acres. Trails and shoreline access connect the smaller lakes.

Trying for the largemouth bass can be painstaking but well worth the effort if you connect into one of the lake’s 5-pounders. The old creek channel in the Main Pool can be a good place to start, especially if you can locate some green vegetation under the ice.

Northern pike and walleyes are the mainstay of the South Pool, and plenty of them are caught. Even an occasional channel cat can be taken in the South Pool on a minnow under a float.

The pike are stocked to maintain the fishery and, in recent years, have been reaching up to 34 inches long. The ‘eyes are topping the 6-pound mark. Look around the area for the fishing walls that were constructed to provide shoreline access to the deepest points in the lakes. These areas are fairly obvious and are great start-off points to drill a few holes and test the waters.

Busse Lake lies in Cook County, south of Higgins. A map showing the submerged fish attractors and the location of the fishing walls is available from the IDNR Web site at www.ifishillinois.org. For more information, call the IDNR’s Region 2 office at (708) 771-1570.

Banner Marsh
Peoria-area ice-fishermen can be proud of the 7-mile-long group of old strip-mine pits and small lakes that make up Banner Marsh. The largest lake is Johnson Lake, at about 100 acres, followed by Shovel and East Access lakes.

Crappies are the main drawing card. According to Tom Grider of Riverside Hunting, Bait and Tackle in Pekin, fish numbers and sizes are both good, and anglers can take plenty of them. Crappie numbers fluctuate from year to year, depending on the success of the spawn and other conditions that sometimes baffle biologists, but they’re always available on the Banner Marsh lakes.

Northern pike aren’t to be outdone by the crappies, although they’re running on the small side. A 5-pounder is a nice one. And when largemouth bass are hitting minnows offered for the crappies, most will be about a pound or so, but 8-pounders have been taken.

“My biggest bass was a 9-pound, 3-ounce female that I released,” Grider said, but this big bass was topped by a 9-pound, 12-ounce fish that ended up on Grider’s wall.

According to Grider, the bluegill fishing is a disappointment. The fish are stunted, and there are many of them, though few worth keeping. (Continued)

All total, Banner Marsh covers almost 600 acres of water. The marsh lies four miles northeast of Banner, in Peoria County on Route 24.

Special fishing regulations are in effect. A three-bass daily limit is in effect with a 12- to 18-inch slot-length limit. The goal is to provide a trophy-class bass fishery, and the area is well on its way.